What Is Meta Stock (META)? A Share in Facebook's Parent

Most people open the same few apps every day, to message a friend, scroll through photos or ask a group chat where to eat. Those apps cost nothing to use, yet the company behind them earns tens of billions of dollars every quarter by selling ads that run inside them. Plenty of people still call that company by the name of its very first app.

Owning a piece of it the usual way means opening an account with a US broker, paying in dollars and placing an order while New York's market is open. That suits someone who lives on New York time. It is awkward if your savings sit in stablecoins and you read the latest AI headline long after the US market has shut for the night.

Tokenized shares and stock perpetuals were built for that gap. A tokenized share is a token backed by a real share that a custodian holds for you. A stock perpetual is a futures contract that follows the share's price without you owning any share, so either one can sit in the same account as your crypto.

The company is Meta Platforms, and BloFin lists its stock both ways: as the METAX/USDT Spot pair, a tokenized share, and as the METAUSDT Perpetual, a contract you can trade long or short with leverage. Both routes start from the same question, which is what one Meta share actually is.

What is Meta stock?

Meta stock is a share of Meta Platforms, Inc., the company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, and it trades on Nasdaq under the ticker META. At the close on October 9, 2026 one share cost $718.67. That valued the whole company at about $1.8 trillion across roughly 2.5 billion shares (source: Stock Analysis).

The share that trades is Meta's Class A common stock, listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (source: Meta Form 10-K for 2025). Meta also has a Class B stock with far more votes per share, held by a small group of insiders. It never trades, and that split shapes what your share can do.

Those seven facts are what a broker, a fund or a token issuer uses to name the exact share. The sector label surprises some people, since Meta builds a lot of technology. Index makers put it in Communication Services, the group for media and messaging companies, because what Meta sells is ad space inside apps people use to talk to each other (source: Stock Analysis).

Because Meta is so large, you may already own a little of it without choosing to. Facebook joined the S&P 500 after the close on December 20, 2013, taking the place of the chip-testing firm Teradyne (source: S&P Dow Jones Indices). Any fund that tracks that index now holds Meta in line with its size.

The share can move a long way in a short time. Over the 52 weeks to October 9, 2026 it traded between $520.26 and $779.82, so the high sat about 50% above the low (source: Stock Analysis).

One name trap is worth clearing up before you look for a price. A Shanghai-listed chip maker called MetaX Integrated Circuits trades under the code 688802 (source: Yicai Global), and searches for "MetaX" often bring it up. It is a separate company, and the token that tracks Meta on BloFin is spelled METAX and always paired with USDT.

From Facebook to Meta: The name and ticker change

The company you can buy today is the same company that listed in 2012 as Facebook. It announced its new name, Meta Platforms, on October 28, 2021. Then on June 9, 2022 its Class A stock started trading on Nasdaq as META in place of FB, the ticker it had used since 2012 (source: Meta Investor Relations).

That is why people still search for "Facebook stock" and "FB stock" tens of thousands of times a month, and why older charts quote a ticker that is gone. Every one of them means the same share.

For anyone who already held it, only the label changed. Meta said holders had nothing to do, and the stock's CUSIP, the nine-character code the US market uses to identify a security, stayed the same (source: Meta Investor Relations). Say you bought 10 FB shares in 2020. On June 9, 2022 your account simply showed 10 META shares, with the same cost, the same votes and the same claim on the company. Your price chart ran back unbroken to 2012 under the new ticker.

The new name fit a company that had grown far beyond its first app. By late 2021 it ran several of the world's biggest apps and was spending billions on virtual and augmented reality, the business it now reports as Reality Labs. Facebook had become one app among several, so the parent took a name of its own.

The listing itself goes back to May 18, 2012, when Facebook began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market after pricing its offering at $38 a share (source: Facebook IPO announcement). It sold 421,233,615 shares, worth about $16 billion at that price. Some were new shares from the company and the rest were sold by early investors. The road from $38 to today's price ran through some deep falls, the worst of them in 2022, and Meta's price history and cycles walks through each one.

Class A shares, votes and the dividend

A Meta share is an equal claim on everything the company owns and earns, plus one vote at the annual meeting and a cash dividend every quarter. With about 2.5 billion shares across both classes, one share is a 2.5-billionth slice of a company that made $15.8 billion of profit in the three months to June 30, 2026 (source: Meta Q2 2026 results).

The dividend is fairly new. Meta's board started paying a quarterly cash dividend in 2024 and raised it from $0.50 to $0.525 a share at the start of 2025 (source: Meta Form 10-K for 2025). At $2.10 a year, the yield at the October 9 close was 0.29% (source: Stock Analysis), which is small. Most of what a Meta share has paid its owners has come from a rising price, and the dividend adds a little on top.

The vote is where Meta differs from most large companies. Its two classes of stock get the same dividends and the same share of the company's assets if it ever closes down (source: Meta Form 10-Q for Q2 2026). The difference is power: each Class A share carries one vote, and each Class B share carries ten (source: Meta Form 10-K for 2025). At the end of 2025 Class B had just 25 holders of record against 2,533 for Class A. A holder of record is someone registered directly on Meta's books, so the millions who own Class A through brokers and funds are not in that count.

The math shows why the ten-to-one rule matters. On July 24, 2026 there were 2,205,128,509 Class A shares and 342,377,716 Class B shares (source: Meta Form 10-Q for Q2 2026). Class B is only about 13% of the shares, but at ten votes each it holds about 3.4 billion votes against 2.2 billion for Class A. That is roughly 61% of all votes. Meta's annual report says its founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, controls a majority of the voting power. As a Class A holder you share fully in the profits, while having little say over who runs the company, and who controls Meta and how comes down to that rule.

How Meta makes its money: Ads and Reality Labs

Almost all of Meta's money comes from ads shown inside its apps. In the three months to June 30, 2026 Meta brought in $60.8 billion, up 28% on a year earlier, and $59.4 billion of that was advertising, about 98% (source: Meta Q2 2026 results).

Meta reports two business segments. Family of Apps earns the money, while Reality Labs spends heavily on headsets, smart glasses and the technology behind them.

Those are Meta's own segment figures for the June quarter (source: Meta Q2 2026 results). Put simply, of every $100 Meta took in that quarter, about $99 came from the apps and less than $1 from Reality Labs. Reality Labs lost roughly $11 for every $1 it brought in. Family of Apps covers Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Threads, and on average 3.6 billion people used at least one of them every day in June 2026 (source: Meta Q2 2026 results).

The ad business grows in two ways, and Meta reports both every quarter. The number of ads shown across its apps rose 14% on a year earlier, and the average price per ad rose 12%. When both rise together, revenue grows faster than either one alone, which is what happened that quarter. How Meta makes money breaks those lines down app by app, including newer sources such as paid messaging on WhatsApp.

The other number every investor watches is spending on artificial intelligence. Meta spent $31.1 billion on capital expenditures in the June quarter alone, mostly on data centers and servers. It expects to spend $130 billion to $145 billion across 2026 (source: Meta Q2 2026 results). That is why free cash flow, the cash left after paying for the build, fell to just $784 million in the quarter, against $8.5 billion a year earlier. Operating income also fell 8% even as revenue grew 28%, partly because of $2.4 billion of legal charges and $1.2 billion of layoff costs (source: Meta Q2 2026 results).

That gap, between fast-growing sales and squeezed cash, is the main tension in the stock. Meta's AI spending and cash flow explains what the money buys and how Meta pays for it. What moves Meta's stock price shows how the market reacts to each of these figures when Meta reports.

Why Meta stock is in the news in October 2026

Three stories have kept Meta stock in the news since late August 2026: a youth-harm settlement, an AI launch and a new fight with TikTok. All three meet in Meta's third-quarter results, due after the market close on October 21, 2026 (source: Meta Q3 2026 date announcement). Each story lands in a different line of those results: one in costs, one in capital spending and one in advertising revenue.

The settlement came first. On August 26, 2026 Meta agreed to settle claims from state attorneys general that Instagram and Facebook harmed young users. The District of Columbia's attorney general put the deal at up to $17.1 billion over ten years, at least $12.1 billion of it guaranteed. It also requires design changes, such as a daily time limit and an overnight feed block for children (source: DC Attorney General). Meta's own announcement put the payment at about $18 billion, paid in yearly installments over ten years. About $5.3 billion of that is released only if YouTube and TikTok adopt similar limits and each pay a matching amount. Meta also expects to record a legal expense of about $10 billion in the third quarter (source: Meta settlement announcement). That charge sits in costs, so third-quarter operating income will look far lower than the business underneath it, the same effect the $2.4 billion of legal charges had in the June quarter.

The rally followed. In September 2026, the month Meta launched Muse, its personal AI agent, with a version for small businesses (source: Meta Newsroom), the share rose from $572.34 to $725.18. That is a gain of 26.7%, worked out from Yahoo Finance's daily closes. Muse has no revenue line of its own in Meta's results, so any money it earns would appear later in advertising or subscriptions, while the data centers behind it show up in capital spending now.

Then came the TikTok fight. In October 2026 Meta confirmed it had stopped running ads from ByteDance, TikTok's owner, in seven countries including the US, Canada and Japan. The ban also covers other advertisers' ads that send people to ByteDance apps there (source: The Next Web). Meta told Reuters it does not have to run ads from a competitor trying to pull people off its apps. Any effect lands in advertising revenue, the line that brings in about 98% of Meta's money.

Reading the news this way keeps a headline in proportion. A $10 billion charge is large next to one quarter's profit, but it is booked once in the accounts, even though the cash is paid over ten years. A change in ad growth or in the spending range, by contrast, changes revenue or costs in every quarter that follows.

Ways to hold Meta with crypto on BloFin

BloFin offers Meta in two forms, and they are different products. METAX/USDT is a spot market for a token that tracks one Meta share, and METAUSDT is a perpetual futures contract on Meta's price that you can trade long or short with leverage. Outside BloFin, you can also own the share itself through a US broker.

METAX is an xStock, a tracker certificate on Meta Platforms issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited as tokens on Solana and Ethereum (source: Backed). Each xStock is backed one to one by the real share, held by a regulated custodian (source: xStocks documentation). When Meta pays its dividend, the issuer uses the cash, after any withholding tax, to buy more Meta shares, and your token balance grows to match (source: xStocks dividends and stock splits). You get the price and that reinvested dividend, but no vote and no direct claim on Meta itself.

The tokens are only for people outside the United States and the United Kingdom, which you confirm before you trade them on BloFin (source: BloFin xStocks risk disclosure). What tokenized Meta (METAX) is, including how its backing is checked and what happens if the issuer fails, is worth reading before you buy.

The perpetual works differently. METAUSDT is priced from an index built on tokenized Meta already trading in the market. It settles in USDT and gives you no ownership, dividend or vote in Meta or in any token (source: BloFin stock futures notice). On BloFin's platform the contract runs from 1x to 20x leverage, with 20x open only to positions up to 100 META (source: BloFin META position tiers). It settles funding payments every eight hours, small transfers between long and short traders that keep the contract's price close to Meta's, and accepts orders from 0.01 META (source: BloFin META contract details).

BloFin also keeps buy orders on the contract within about 3% above the index price and sell orders within about 3% below it. That stops a thin order book from filling you far from where Meta is really trading. How the META perpetual works, from funding to liquidation, is the next step before you size a position.

The three options split on two questions: how long you plan to hold, and in which direction. Holding Meta for months fits the token, which costs nothing to keep and collects the reinvested dividend. The perpetual suits a move you expect over days, or a bet on the price falling, with a funding payment every eight hours for as long as it stays open. METAX or the META perpetual works through that choice with real numbers.

You can see where the token is trading right now on the METAX/USDT Spot page, and the current funding rate and open interest on the METAUSDT Perpetual page.

Trading hours for META, METAX and the perpetual

Each option keeps its own hours. Meta's shares trade on Nasdaq from 9.30AM to 4PM ET on weekdays. BloFin's xStocks disclosure says xStock markets, METAX/USDT among them, trade 24 hours a day on weekdays (source: BloFin xStocks risk disclosure), so the token trades through the evening and early morning, outside Nasdaq's regular session.

You can see that in the price. Early on Monday, October 12, 2026, before Nasdaq opened, METAX/USDT on BloFin was trading at 723.80 USDT. That was about 0.7% above Friday's Nasdaq close of $718.67, because the token trades while Nasdaq's regular session is shut.

The perpetual quotes all the time, but what you can do with it changes through the day. Outside regular US trading hours on weekdays, and on weekends and US market holidays, BloFin may limit stock futures to reduce-only orders (source: BloFin stock futures notice). A reduce-only order can close or shrink a position, but it cannot open or add to one. The regular window is 1.30PM to 8PM UTC while the US is on daylight saving time, and 2.30PM to 9PM UTC once US daylight saving time ends on November 1, 2026.

Meta releases its quarterly results after the 4PM ET close, so the numbers land just as the window for opening new perpetual positions may shut. If you want a perpetual position for a report, you have to open it before the close, while METAX keeps trading through the evening that follows. Knowing which market is open when the numbers arrive is the first step in any plan for an earnings night.

Margin for one Meta share at 1x to 20x

Say you have about $720 and want exposure to one Meta share at the October 9, 2026 close of $718.67. Through a US broker that buys one Class A share. On BloFin's spot market the same amount in USDT buys about one METAX. Smaller amounts buy fractions, so 72 USDT buys roughly a tenth of a token.

On the perpetual, the money you put up is margin, a deposit that backs the position. The leverage you pick decides how much Meta that deposit controls, and one rule sets the deposit:

Margin needed equals the position's value divided by the leverage you choose.

For one share's worth of Meta at $718.67, 1x needs 718.67 USDT of margin and 20x needs just 35.93 USDT, while a 5% move in Meta is worth 35.93 USDT at any setting.

What leverage changes is how much of your own money stands behind it. At 20x, a fall of only about 2.5% against you would trigger liquidation. That is because the position must keep a maintenance margin, the minimum deposit needed to keep it open, of 2.50% on its lowest tier (source: BloFin META position tiers). The same 35.93 USDT that buys about a twentieth of a token on the spot market can control a whole share's worth of Meta on the perpetual, and that gap is both the appeal and the risk.

Getting out is the reverse in each case. A broker share is sold for dollars while Nasdaq is open, and a METAX token is sold back into USDT on the same spot pair whenever that market is open. A perpetual position is closed with an order in the opposite direction. Reduce-only always allows that, even on a weekend when opening new positions may be blocked. Before you size any of the three, check the day's price, whether your market is open, and the current funding rate on the perpetual's trading page.

Meta also sits alongside its biggest rivals on the same exchange. Amazon is the closest match, another ad giant spending heavily on AI, and how Meta compares with Amazon sets the two side by side. Alphabet against Meta covers the other half of the online ad market.

Meta is one of several large US companies BloFin lists this way, and its guide to tokenized stocks and other TradFi assets lists every one you can hold as a token or trade as a perpetual.

Looking to gain exposure to Meta? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and go to the METAX/USDT Spot trading page or the METAUSDT Perpetual trading page.

Frequently asked questions

Does Meta buy back its own shares?

Meta has a buyback program, but it bought no Class A shares in the first six months of 2026. About $25.0 billion of its authorization was still unused on June 30, 2026 (source: Meta Form 10-Q for Q2 2026). The program dates from January 2017 and has no end date. A year earlier, in the second quarter of 2025 alone, Meta spent $10.2 billion on buybacks (source: Meta Q2 2026 results). The pause came as AI spending took most of its cash, so buybacks are one of the figures to watch when Meta reports.

What would $10,000 in Meta stock from ten years ago be worth now?

About $55,000, before dividends. Meta closed at $130.24 on October 10, 2016 and at $718.67 on October 9, 2026. So $10,000 would have bought about 76.8 shares, worth roughly $55,180 at the later price, around 5.5 times the starting amount (source: Yahoo Finance META history). The dividends paid since 2024 would add a little more. The ride was rough, though: the share fell about 77% from $382.18 on September 7, 2021 to $88.91 on November 3, 2022, worked out from the same history.

Has Meta stock ever split?

Meta has never split its stock since it listed in May 2012, so one share today is the same unit that listed then (source: Stock Analysis statistics). A split gives each holder more shares at a lower price each, with no change in the total value they own. That is why one Meta share costs several hundred dollars while Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia have used splits to keep their prices lower. If Meta ever split, the xStocks issuer would raise every METAX balance to match, so a token holder's value would stay the same (source: xStocks dividends and stock splits).

When does Meta report its earnings?

Meta reports four times a year, a few weeks after each quarter ends in March, June, September and December, and posts each date on its investor relations site beforehand. On report day it also holds a conference call for investors, which for the second quarter of 2026 started at 4.30PM ET on July 29 (source: RTTNews). The written release carries the outlook, such as the $61 billion to $64 billion of third-quarter revenue Meta guided to in July (source: Meta Q2 2026 results). Results are when the share, the token and the perpetual tend to move most.

Is Meta part of the Magnificent Seven?

Meta is one of the Magnificent Seven, the seven very large US tech stocks named by Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett in 2023, after a 1960 western (source: OPB). The other six are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. The label is just a market nickname, so no fund has to follow it. Even so, the seven make up a large part of the S&P 500 and often move as a group.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Meta's second quarter 2026 results, its Form 10-K for 2025 and Form 10-Q for the second quarter of 2026, Meta's 2022 ticker change announcement and Facebook's 2012 offering announcement, the Meta Newsroom, the District of Columbia Attorney General, The Next Web, RTTNews, S&P Dow Jones Indices, Stock Analysis and Yahoo Finance market data for META, OPB, the Backed product page for Meta xStock and the xStocks documentation. BloFin's sources are its META contract details and position tiers, its stock futures notice and its xStocks risk disclosure, current as of October 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Meta in any form. Meta's share price fell about 77% between September 2021 and November 2022 and rose 26.7% in September 2026 alone, and a holder of the stock, the METAX token or the METAUSDT Perpetual is exposed to moves of that size. METAX gives you no vote and depends on its issuer and custodians. The perpetual can be liquidated by a move far smaller than its leverage suggests, and outside US trading hours it may accept only orders that reduce a position. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.